Ark Alexandra Academy

The William Parker Sports College, formerly known as Hastings Grammar School, and later as William Parker School, is a secondary school in Hastings, East Sussex in the United Kingdom. It is now the only boys' secondary school in East Sussex, and has achieved specialist Sports College status.

It takes boys from age 11 to age 16, and there is a separate Sixth form which is shared with Helenswood School, a local girls' school. There are 1069 boys in years 7–11 and 306 boys and girls in the shared sixth form (2005). Helenswood has places for 1100 girls in years 7-11. Other local secondary schools include the co-educational Hillcrest, The Grove and Filsham Valley. Each school takes approximately 200 pupils in a year.

**William Parker Sports College**
File:Williamparkercrest.gif
Headmaster	D Greenup
School type	Maintained
Religious affiliation	Christian (links with Diocese of Chichester)
Founded	1619
Location	Hastings, East Sussex
Enrollment	Years 7–11 plus 6th Form
Faculty	—
Campus surroundings	Suburban
Sports teams	First XI in football and cricket
School Motto	Care, Respect, Achievement

Campus

There are separate facilities in Parkstone Road (formerly Hastings Grammar School) and Park Avenue. The Parkstone Road site has been revamped recently with windows being replaced and the tower block being completely rebuilt (2002). Lessons in the school are split between the upper school (Parkstone Road) and the lower school (Park Avenue). In 1993 the school hall burnt down and was replaced with The Phoenix Arts Centre — a fully equipped working theatre. The school has recently (September 2005) taken over the running of its own catering to provide its students with better quality and more reasonably priced food. This change was spurred on by Jamie Oliver's campaign. The school's catering service is called Café Parker. The logo for the cafe was designed in house by a year 10 graphics student called Daniel Chantler.

Upper School

The lessons taught in the Upper school are:

Humanities: Geography, History and Religious Education
English and Media
Business, Economics and Politics
Art
Science
I.C.T
Music
P.E

Lower School

The lessons taught in the Lower school are:

Modern Foreign Languages: French, German, Spanish and Italian
Mathematics
Design Technology
Drama
I.C.T
Science
Music
P.E

Facilities

William Parker School, Parkstone road building

465 Computers for student use
Drama studio
Nine science laboratories
Three Art and design suites
Fully equipped graphics studio capable of working with up to 28 students
Open-plan Resource and Library Centre
Air-conditioned classrooms
90% of classrooms equipped with interactive whiteboards
ABJ indoor cricket school (built in commemoration of Alan Booth Jones)
Dance Studio
Yamaha music centre and music technology room
William Parker Community Athletics Arena

Sports, Clubs, and Traditions

William Parker community athletics arena

Apart from football and cricket, many other sports are played.

The college is divided into eight houses for sporting and pastoral purposes, each of which has its own colour:

Saxon-Red
Saunders-Green
Becket-Dark Blue
Norman-Light Blue
Parker-Yellow
Wykeham-Maroon
DeCham-Orange (Added Post 2000)
Magdalen-Dark purple (Added Post 2000)

Brothers are always entered into the same House.

Extra-curricular opportunities

The college hosts a contingent of the Combined Cadet Force, membership of which is open to pupils from both William Parker School and Helenswood School in Year 8 (the year in which their thirteenth birthday falls) and above. The contingent comprises both an Army section (badged to the Queen's Royal Hussars) and an RAF section.
Numerous Sports Teams (more than non-specialist schools offer)
Links with Hastings and Bexhill Rugby Club
Links with Horntye Sports Centre
Links with Hastings Priory Cricket Club
Drama Productions and Theatre Visits
Peer Mentor program involving sixteen year 11's working directly with year 7's. This involves doing 6 sessions of training with the NSPCC; William Parker is the only school which does this in the town, if not the county and country.
Students write for the termly newsletter
Eight students participated in a reading challenge with year 3 pupils from Little Ridge School. It was organised by the Hastings and St. Leonards excellence cluster to help improve the reading skills and the desire to read of year 3 pupils.
Published poet Richard Evans came in and did six sessions on poetry with years 8–11.
Pupil Jamie Dunmill won a multi-school competition that the police organised, to design a sticker to promote shops which students who feel threatened could go into for safety. He won a digital camera and half of the prize money.

Rewards

The school has two reward systems for its pupils. For years 7–9 merits are provided for good work and there are varying prizes for different amounts (below). The person who manages to achieve the most merits across key stage 3 wins a mountain bike. In years 10 and 11 there is a postcard system whereby postcards are sent to the pupil's home for particularly good work. Pupils with the most postcards have an increased chance of winning the termly prize, for instance an MP3 player and as with key stage 3, a big prize is given at the end of each year to the pupil with the most postcards, for instance a digital camera.

Rewards for key stage 3

50 merits: Chocolate Bar
75 merits: Café Parker "money off" Voucher
100 merits: Cinema Voucher
150 merits: Bowling Voucher
200 merits: A Parker pen
250 merits: Music Voucher
300 merits: A Sports Holdall
400 merits: Book Vouchers

History

In 1619 The Rev. William Parker, Rector of All Saint's Church, Hastings died, leaving a will which said: "I give unto the Mayor, Jurates and Comynaltye of Hastings and to their successors for ever towards the maynteynance of a Religious and godlie Schoolemaster in the sayd towne w'ch shall instructe and teach the youthe of the Inhabitants of Hastings in learninge, manners and other vertuous education to gette their livinge. To which sayd use I give all my land in the parishe of Oer". This is taken as the foundation of the school, although the first schoolmaster was not appointed for another 20 years.

In 1708, a kentish landowner by the name of James Saunders, made various charitable legacies in his will, one of which was for a schoolmaster to teach poor boys in Hastings. The Saunders and Parker charities were combined until 1816, when they became separate institutions. At that time around 55 pupils were being educated. The two were permanently re-merged in 1878, together with part of the Magdalen trust, to form the Hastings Grammar School Foundation. An imposing Victorian building was constructed in a prominent position overlooking Hastings, at Standen's High Field which became Nelson road, and occupied in July 1883.

Following the Education Act of 1902, the school began to receive a grant from the British Government. Under the Education Act of 1944, secondary schools in England were reorganised in three categories: grammar schools, technical schools, and secondary modern schools. The school was naturally classed as a grammar school under this scheme, and had voluntary aided status: in other words the income from the Foundation was supplemented by a grant from the Local Education Authority. From now on, admission to the school was solely via the eleven-plus examination, and education was free (previously there had been fees of five guineas a year). Classes were held six days a week, with no lessons on Wednesday and Saturday afternoons. Saturday morning school was abolished in 1967.

In 1959 the school governors decided to change the status of the school from voluntary aided to voluntary controlled. The school was now controlled by a board of ten governors appointed by the borough of Hastings and five appointed by the charitable foundation. The charitable funds remained under the control of the foundation governors, but responsibility for providing buildings now fell to the education authority. A new modern building was constructed further from the town centre, on 42 acres of land which had long been used as the school's playing fields. The new school was designed for 570 boys, including a sixth form of 120 and is now the Parkstone Road half of the school. The foundation stone of the new school was laid on 4 July 1962, and the school occupied in 1964.

The incoming Labour government of 1965 introduced a change in national education policy intended to phase out grammar school education and replace it with comprehensive education. This was resisted by the borough of Hastings, but local government reorganisation under the following Conservative administration meant that the autonomous borough was abolished and replaced by East Sussex County Council as the education authority. A decision was taken to change to a comprehensive school intake, and at the same time to merge the school with Hastings Secondary School. A further new building was constructed on the same site, but reached by a separate road entrance in Park Avenue. The school was renamed "the William Parker School".

In 1998, the school achieved specialist Sports College status.

In 2006, the school re-instated the roles of Head Boy, Deputy Head Boy and Prefects for the Year 7-11 year group. They are chosen from the current group of year 11s and are distinguished from the rest of the year group by their tie, which is dark blue with the school crest and the role of the person on it.

Staff

Senior Management

Head of school: Mr. Greenup
Deputy Head: Mr. J. Court
Curriculum Co-ordinator: Mr. D. Bargery
Director of Guidance: Mr. M. Day
Sports College Director: Mr. I. Gillespie

Heads of Year

Head of Year 7: Mrs. T. Edwards
Head of Year 8: Mr. D. Sprinks
Head of Year 9: Mrs. N. Magorrian
Head of Year 10: Mr. S. Casebourne
Head of Year 11: Mr. A. Baker
Head of 6th form: Mr. W. Davies

Heads of Departments

Science: Mr. P. Osborne
English and Media: Mr. S. O'Malley
Mathematics: Mr. Morris
History: Mrs. U. Reid
Geography and Citizenship: Mr. P. Cherry
Religious Education: Mrs. H. Summers
Design Technology: Mr. R. Keesing
ICT: Mr. D. Hanson
Modern Foreign Languages: Mr. R. Baines
Physical Education: Mr. M. Hyde
Business, Economics and Politics: Mr. M. Ingarfield
Drama: Mrs. S. Marchant
Art: Ms. S. Bocking
Music: Mrs. L. Rowland

Uniform

Winter

Blazer and badge
Plain white or blue shirt
House tie with matching colour (see below)
Dark grey or black trousers
Black shoes
Optional-Navy blue v-neck jumper or William Parker "Hoodie"

Summer

Option of William Parker Polo Shirts instead of shirt and tie
Option of William Parker baseball cap

Noted Hastings Grammar School alumni

Archibald Belaney (1888-1938), who emigrated to Canada, claimed to be half-Apache, and wrote a number of books under the name of Grey Owl.

Noted William Parker School alumni

Gareth Barry, England and Aston Villa football player. [1]
Michael Yardy, England and Sussex cricket player. [2]
Darren Boyd, Actor

Noted former teachers

Tom Cookson (died 1993) husband of Catherine Cookson, popular novelist.
Sion Jenkins, former deputy head. In 2004 he won an appeal against his conviction for murdering his foster-daughter Billie-Jo Jenkins in 1997. He was re-tried in July 2005, and a third time in February 2006, but both times the jury failed to agree on a verdict, and on 9 February 2006 he was formally acquitted.

External links